US Patent 10110668 System and method for monitoring service nodes

In an example, there is disclosed a network apparatus for providing native load balancing within a switch, including: a first network interface operable to communicatively couple to a first network; a plurality of second network interfaces operable to communicatively couple to a second network; one or more logic elements forming a switching engine operable for providing network switching or routing; and one or more logic elements providing a load balancing engine operable for: load balancing network traffic among a plurality of service nodes; probing a first service node; and determining that the first service node is unavailable.